Chapter 3
THREE
At A Glance
Mabel
I’d scoped several places to be my getaway after things careened viciously south down in Orlando.
The reason I picked Misted Pines was, well…the pines. All the rolling hills and mountains of glorious, gorgeous green Ponderosa, Douglas, western hemlock, red cedar, Englemann, Sitka and subalpine pine and fir trees.
Then there were the many lakes.
The famous fields of wildflowers.
And also, the little town of Misted Pines.
My besties, Kacey and Mona, were staunchly against me moving to this famously infamous small town in northeast Washington State.
Me, nor they, nor anyone (possibly globally) had missed the series of stories of sex scandals, serial killers, psychopath shenanigans and shifty sheriffs that plagued that burg over the last several years.
In fact, Elsa Cohen herself, the new Barbara Walters, had interviewed what had become known as the town’s “Coven.” Wronged women who’d taken over a subdivision outside the town, and no men entered unless it was to fix a leaky faucet or flush some other kind of plumbing, after which they’d be thanked, possibly Post-it style (huh), and sent on their way.
I’d looked into that subdivision, believe you me. Like far too many other women, I was a member for sure, even if I wasn’t officially a member of that coven.
Alas, there were not only no homes available there, none of them had big workshops.
So that was out.
Mona and Kacey thought I was nuts for moving here.
I thought, since crazy crap kept happening to me since birth (no joke), even if crazy crap kept happening up there, I might as well be somewhere pretty, quiet and slow-paced when it happened, instead of too busy, full of traffic and tourists, muggy and hot most of the year (and full of bugs (not that there weren’t bugs up here, it was just that no bugs of my experience rivaled Florida bugs)).
And I might as well be somewhere where crazy crap was expected to happen rather than surprise clocking you full face with its cruelty.
Kacey and Mona thought I had a screw loose.
I knew I did.
It was in the genes.
Another big part of Misted Pines that sealed the deal for my move was the town itself.
Straight up, it looked like something out of a movie. I wasn’t sure even an inch of the town proper or the immediate surrounding neighborhoods had changed in the last, at least, seventy years.
There was an old, one-screen movie theater.
There was a fruit and veggie shop that sold only fruit and vegetables, and in this day and age of superstores, it stayed solvent by some miracle (just to say, I also bought my fruit and veg there, so maybe it wasn’t that much of a mystery).
Same with a butcher (and same with me getting my meat there).
There was a ’50s-style diner. A tackle shop.
A florist. A coffee shop with a massive mural on its side that was an indictment of both hunting and environmental waste. And there was more.
No, I was wrong.
There had been one change.
An entire block had been dozed so the town had a pretty garden with flower beds, lawns, benches, and a fountain in the middle, and that wasn’t original.
I had a degree in business. I hadn’t played this stupid.
I knew between the outdoor activities, the ski slopes that weren’t near, but they also weren’t far, the scenery and the scandals (no doubt about it, a ton of folks loved a good scandal), even if it was a far drive from the airport in Spokane, and a much farther one from Seattle, tourism here was strong.
Fortunately, Misted Pines also had an airstrip, though it was small and only small planes used it. Then again, MP played host to some tourists that were loaded, so that airstrip was busy.
This was because they even had a five-star hotel with a world-class spa abutting the biggest lake in the county (the source of the “mist” in Misted Pines, as it had a multitude of hot springs feeding it, so the water was temperate year-round, but when it got cold, the mist of the lake enveloped the town, even miles away up at my cabin).
As picturesque as all of this was, it still somehow didn’t hide the seediness that humanity got up to.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was a feel to the place that was so contradictory, it could make your head spin if you thought on it too long.
It was welcoming. It was warm. It was quiet. It was low-key. It was pretty. The people were friendly.
And it was seething.
Don’t ask me how this was real, it just was.
Prominent on the town’s only major street was the county’s sheriff’s office. A one-story brick building on a corner.
And that was where I aimed my truck.
It was early September, and somehow, even if the kids were at school, so vacations weren’t on offer, the tourist traffic hadn’t died down that much.
Perhaps it was due to the Pinetop Lodge, that aforementioned five-star hotel that hosted weddings and had the capacity for conferences.
Who knew?
I just knew I constantly had to hustle to keep the store stocked, because one couldn’t say I was killing it, but after month four up here, I hadn’t had to dig into his money to pay my employees, my rent, or feed myself.
I wasn’t adding to (or, God forbid, subtracting from) my other bank account, the one I left to earn interest, which had been created by me selling off my belongings before moving up here.
The one I’d use as a down payment when I finally bought a house to settle—please God, once and for always—somewhere safe.
But even if the store wasn’t making a killing, it was making it.
Due to the bustle of Main Street, I had to park two storefronts down from the sheriff’s department in one of the angled spots right on the road.
I did this.
And then I tramped back to the station, opened the door and all but flung myself through it.
Mm-hmm.
You could take this as I was still angry.
Very.
Unsurprisingly, the reception area was a throwback in time. Gleaming wooden counter facing the door, old wooden benches on the edges to sit in should you have to wait for…whatever you’d have to wait for at a police station.
Beyond that counter, however, I was hurtled back into the twenty-first century.
Desk cubbies with low walls so the personnel could see and talk to each other. Nice computers. Two glass-walled conference rooms at the back.
A Latino man was standing at the counter. His name plate said Hernandez.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
I walked up to him. “I’d like to report a trespassing. And a threat. A threatening trespassing,” I announced.
I then opened my bag, pulled out the letter and handed it to him.
“That was on my welcome mat this morning,” I went on. “And yes, before you ask, I had company last night. He spent the night, left this morning, and he was not my husband under God’s eyes or anybody’s.”
In fact, I don’t even know the man’s name, I did not add. Though I knew he was polite…as such.
Deputy Hernandez listened to this with a blank cop face before he opened the letter, read it, and I was gratified to see how his eyes narrowed on the words.
He looked again at me. “Can I ask where you live, ma’am?”
“Four four five oh, County Road 10,” I told him.
At hearing my address, there was a flicker in his eyes I didn’t like.
This department had law enforcement responsibilities throughout the whole county. My miniscule three-acre property was one of possibly thousands they had jurisdiction over. How that flicker happened after me throwing a random address at him did not give me good vibes.
“Neither Lieutenant Lazurus nor Detective Wilkins are here right now,” he said. “But can you come around so I can take your statement?”
He moved down to the end of the counter, with me moving with him, so he could open the swinging door for me.
“I don’t really have a statement,” I said as I walked through. “The totality of my statement is what I already told you.”
He led me to a desk and gestured to the guest chair.
I sat.
He sat at the desk.
He then said, “Just a few questions so we can get our bearings.”
Our bearings were: someone was watching me. There wasn’t a house or building anywhere near me, but they were watching closely enough they knew I’d entertained my Post-it Lover last night, they had some ideas about that, and they didn’t delay in sharing them.
Before I could point that out to Deputy Hernandez, he asked, “How long have you been at that address?”
“As long as I’ve been in Misted Pines. Seven months. No, wait…seven and a half months.”
“Right,” he muttered, writing that down on a legal pad on his desk.
“Just to get through this, I own The Groove. The new store on Main Street,” I shared.
He nodded. Still scribbling.
I kept talking.
“I don’t really work there. I have a manager, Abigail Buckner, who sees to the store. I also have two part-time sales associates, Clarissa and Julie, who work weekends. Usually, I’m all over the county, sourcing stock, or up in my workshop, refurbishing that stock.”
He kept nodding and scribbling.
“So I’m up there a lot,” I continued. “Alone,” I stressed.
A beep sounded from the direction of reception. His head came up. Mine turned.
And for heaven’s sake.
Two tall, built, criminally handsome men walked through the doors.
I knew them both from my research into Misted Pines.
The one who had shades of Henry Cavill, but older, and more good-looking, was Zachariah Lazarus, the ex-FBI agent who moved to Misted Pines after he caught not only the serial killer known as the Crystal Killer, but also the copycat killers who had unintentionally lured him here.
The other one, who had glorious shades of no one but himself, was Sheriff Harry Moran, the squeaky-clean good cop that came after the, at best, lazy and negligent, at worse, corrupt sheriff who came before him, Leland Dern.
“One second,” Deputy Hernandez said before he got up, taking my note with him, and he met the two at the swinging door.
A quiet conversation was had. I couldn’t hear a word of it. But several times during it, both Moran and Lazarus turned their handsome heads to look at me.
In the midst of this, a very petite woman (she couldn’t reach even five foot tall) who gave shades of Aunt Bea, complete with string of pearls and lace collar on her floral printed dress (see what I mean about this place?), joined them.
As she listened to them talk, even she glanced at me with no small amount of alarm in her eyes.
Fantastic.
What was going on?
Moran and Lazurus, with Aunt Bea, turned a corner and disappeared.
Deputy Hernandez came to me.
“Sheriff Moran would like to talk to you,” he said. “Would you follow me?”
“What’s going on?” I asked as I got up.
“Sheriff Moran will explain.”
Not having remotely good feelings about this, I followed him to a hall that led to an office at the front of the building, and past an office with Aunt Bea standing at the door of it.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked as I passed.
Would I be there that long?
I was jazzed enough, so I replied, “Thank you, but no.”
She nodded, and I felt her eyes on me as Deputy Hernandez led me to the office at the end of the hall.
Lazurus was sitting on a chair opposite Moran, who was behind his desk.
When I entered after Deputy Hernandez, they both took their feet.
“God, sorry, we didn’t get that far. I didn’t get your name,” Deputy Hernandez said to me.
“Mabel. Mabel Adams,” I supplied.
“Harry, Rus, this is Mabel Adams,” Deputy Hernandez said unnecessarily.
I found it interesting that, right in front of me, he didn’t use titles.
It was my experience men liked titles a whole lot. The more authority they had, the more they were sure to tack on doctor, senator, general, sergeant, whatever it was they earned, they wanted it front and center.
Both men came forward, giving their names in the exact same way.
Lazarus first. “Rus Lazarus, Rus.”
No Lieutenant.
I shook his hand then turned to the sheriff.
“Harry Moran, Harry.”
I shook his hand too.
“Have a seat,” he invited.
But I didn’t want to.
I really, really didn’t want to.
Because I glanced at his desk.
On it was the note.
They’d sealed it in an evidence bag.
Disturbing.
Also his computer screen was turned toward the room.
And that had an aerial map of a mountain property with one of those red computer pinpoints over a cabin.
And I knew at a glance that cabin was mine.